Being Liverpool, Behind-The-Scenes Documentary, Debuts On US Television: Open Thread

FOX makes history today by broadcasting the first-ever soccer documentary ever to be shown on free-to-air network television in the United States. That fact alone is another reason to recognize how soccer has grown in this country from a sport that was laughed at and denigrated in the eighties to what it has become today.

Depending on where you live in the United States, FOX will show “Being: Liverpool,” its behind-the-scenes TV documentary, either from 3-4pm ET (for markets getting the 4pm ET NFL game) or 4:30-5:30pm ET (for markets getting the 1pm ET NFL game).

Before, during or after the “Being: Liverpool” documentary, post your observations in the comments section below. I’m particularly interested in reading what you think about the debut episode of the documentary. Do you like it? Is it better or worse than you expected — based on EPL Talk’s review of the first episode?

About Christopher Harris

Founder and publisher of World Soccer Talk, Christopher Harris is the managing editor of the site. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian and several other publications. Plus he has made appearances on NPR, BBC World, CBC, BBC Five Live, talkSPORT and beIN SPORT.
Harris, who has lived in Florida since 1984, has supported Swansea City since 1979. He's also an expert on soccer in South Florida, and got engaged during half-time of a MLS game.
Harris launched EPL Talk in 2005, which was rebranded as World Soccer Talk in 2013.
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29 Responses to Being Liverpool, Behind-The-Scenes Documentary, Debuts On US Television: Open Thread

Gaffer your article about the other day about the first episode ruined it for me but I’ll watch anyway. I actually liked the behind the behind the scenes look at Steven Gerard that was done several years ago and was hoping this would be something similar but I’m not holding my breath.

I already have my DVR set to record it at 9 tonight on FSC, but was disappointed that it was not promoted more on FOX. Not only did they refuse to ever give a specific air time, but most providers do not even have it listed on FOX as an option to watch. Instead they have listed “Bloopers!” in the TV guides.

Very poor. How many people are going to miss out on it because of this? I’m sure that if it were actually listed they would get a larger audience than they most likely will now.

I watched it last week. It was like an episode of MTV Cribs with the odd other bits thrown in here and there. The only things it left me thinking about afterwards was how nice Rodgers’ house was and how big the swimming pool was and how amusing it was to see that Lucas plays Monopoly with Suarez and Coates lol

For a Liverpool fan it’s great but for ‘outsiders’ not so much. Hoping it gets better.

Gaffer I’ll give it a generous 6/10 for the first episode. Would have been nice to see some of the behind the scenes stuff with Dalglish getting sacked at the end of last season and the appointment of Rodgers. They spun it like he was the only choice when we all know they supposedly got turned down by several other managers first. Easy to see it’s geared towords promoting Liverpool fc in the USA and not a real HBO type behind the scenes program.

Also thought it was pretty funny that the fella at the start was bragging about Liverpool having “thousands of flags and songs”. Hopefully the next couple of episodes are better viewing.

I was hoping it would be more hard knocks style, but it seemed to be just a show to convince neutrals to follow liverpool. Im ok with that to some extent to build a bigger fanbase (liverpool and soccer in general), but its not what i was expecting. Gonna be a bit annoying during the full run of the show, but ill still watch. Kinda neat to see a medical get performed and such. Also, unintentional humor in how Rodgers spends a few minutes talking about how awesome his niece is and then barely mentions his own daughter’s name.

Not edited well at all giving the impression the story was weak, didn’t build any expectation, or interest. I assume that’s because they had to go back and re film a bunch after Kenny was booted. No surprise Rodgers seems like a nice guy. No surprise Gerrard is a nice guy either.

The production quality wasn’t that good either especially when you compare it to “a football life” by the NFL network. It’s not like there aren’t good productions teams in the uk, Top Gear for one is a good example of production quality.

For americans, If you want to paint english football players as super stars, athletes at the top of their game @ the most prestigious club in England (allegedly) you have to show them in that that light first, before you show them playing monopoly on an ikea table…

I think Paul said it best earlier, “it was like MTV cribs”, I would amend, Gerard’s house was plush, Rodgers House with his roman greko swimming pool was like MTV cribs, everything else was like..well..not that. I fell asleep after 30 mins or so and that was at noon on sunday!

Sad to see my favorite sport portrayed by one of its biggest names as…meh

Why didn’t they spend the first 20-30 mins building up the sport and then LFC in that context, the influence, LFC have had, the headlines with the doubles, the success, the glamour, the Champions league win, I saw none of that, some shots of Kenny Daglish scoring hardly put it in context… Such a wasted opportunity

I think its going to be a slow burn… You have to start simple and this show seems aimed at providing Americans with a glimpse into the club. Then at turns it did gloss over the LFC history – just assuming you know all that. Weird. I think also its setting the tone of the players stories to be followed early on… Here’s hoping, but I’ll be watching. I’m a sucker for documentary series.

Agreed. It’s aimed towards Red Sox fans who realize that they have a connection to Liverpool (or rather were forced that connection) and that’s why Liverpool’s history (incredibly storied, needless to say) was overlooked a bit, or rather was not expounded upon. And that’s also why this documentary has an American feel to it, even though it’s about a British league.

It is what it is. Any fan that wishes to consider themselves a true fan would, I hope, look up and watch the Liverpool History documentary on YouTube.